Sleepless Night
by Mette A
Summary: Gil is getting married. But the night before his wedding he has trouble sleeping, and decides to pay Catherine a visit.


**Title: **Sleepless Night.

**Rating: **K+

**Spoiler: **AU after the end of season 3.

**Summary:** Gil is getting married, but the night before his wedding he can't sleep, so he pays Catherine a visit.

**Disclaimers:** CSI Crime Scene Investigation does not belong to me, they are the property of CBS, Alliance Atlantis, Jerry Bruckheimer.

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She awoke to the sound of something being thrown against her window. She rubbed her face with her hands and rubbed her eyes once more before getting out of bed. Knowing that it could only be one person she wasn't surprised to see him standing outside. Waving at him and indicating that she'd be right down, he went and sat down on a bench in the garden as she put on more appropriate clothes for going outside than her nightgown.

When she came outside she found him sitting and waiting for her. He didn't look up as she approached him and when a few moments of silence went by without him saying anything, she finally spoke.

"I need my beauty sleep, so what's up, Gil?" He shrugged.

"I couldn't sleep." She smiled a little and sat down next to him.

"You should, you know. Big day tomorrow. You shouldn't have baggy eyes on your wedding day." He nodded.

"I know." He finally looked at her. "I just needed to see you." She gave him a small smile.

"Something specific on your mind?" He shrugged and then shook his head looking away from her and out into the garden.

"No, not really." She eyed him and then smiled a little to herself knowing what was up with him.

"You're nervous about tomorrow." He smiled a little shyly but still didn't look at her. However, he nodded slightly. She placed her hand over his and gave it a slight squeeze. "It's okay to be nervous." He shook his head.

"What do I have to be nervous about?" He let her hand remain on his. "I'm a grown man, and with all the horrible things I've seen in my line of work, I shouldn't be nervous about my wedding day."

"But you're a very private person, and you don't feel comfortable standing up in front of everyone revealing your feelings." He rolled her eyes. She chuckled at his response and nudged his arm with her own. "Don't you roll your eyes at me, Gilbert Grissom. You know I'm right." He looked at her again and smiled a little.

"I do." She smirked at him.

"Reciting you vows already?" He rolled his eyes again, but this time he nudged her with his arm. They shared a laugh.

"Very funny, Cath."

They remained silent for a long time, and when she looked at her watch, half an hour had passed since he'd arrived. Once again she broke the silence.

"Was there anything else?" They locked eyes for a long moment both seeing deep feelings of love in each other's eyes. She closed her eyes for a brief moment biting her lower lip, while he swallowed before he responded.

"Why are you trying to get rid of me?" She sighed and looked towards the house before looking back at him.

"Because, you shouldn't be here." He nodded.

"I know, but I can't help it." He took the courage reaching out his hand and ran a finger down her cheek. She shivered at his touch and shook her head.

"Don't." He ignored her and continued with what he was doing.

She couldn't deny the feelings that stirred inside her from his touch, and she let him continue for a little while longer. However, when his entire hand caressed her cheek, she shook her head and moved her head away from his hand and looked out into the garden. He sighed from the loss of contact.

"Cath, please. You can't deny this." She closed her eyes and nodded.

"I know, Gil. But it's not ri….." Before she could finish he had pulled her back towards him and was kissing her. She gave in and kissed him back.

After a few moments they broke apart both in need of oxygen. She tried to move away from him but he held her in her place.

"Don't turn away from this." They kissed again and when they broke apart they rested their foreheads against each others.

"But we can't do this. You shouldn't even be here." He removed his forehead from hers and looked at her. A second later she looked at him.

"You're the one, who made me leave in the first place, remember?" She nodded slowly regretting her decision now. She whispered her reply.

"I know." He started caressing her cheek again.

"You can correct that, you know." She shook her head and once again looked towards the house.

"You know we can't." She looked back at him and into his eyes. "It's too late for that now." She smiled sadly and he sighed.

"I guess that means I should leave." She nodded.

"It would probably be for the best. You do need your sleep." He sighed again not looking forward to sleep. She stood up and looked down at him. "I'll walk you to your car." He nodded and got up.

"Okay."

They walked to his car in silence and with some space between them. Neither thought they'd be able to keep their hands off each other if they walked right next to each other.

When they reached his car she turned and gave him a small smile.

"Well, here we are." He smiled a little in return.

"Yeah, here we are." She reached her hand out and this time she caressed his cheek.

"Try to get some sleep. It'll do you good." He took her hand off his cheek and kissed the inside of her hand. Then in one swift move he pulled her to him and the next thing she knew she was pinned against his car and once again she was being kissed passionately.

When they broke apart they were both panting for air.

He took her face in his hands and looked her straight in the eyes being completely serious.

"Come with me. We'll leave and forget all about tomorrow. It'll just be you and me. What do you say?" She laughed running her right hand through his hair while placing her left hand on his chest. She looked at the engagement ring he'd given her a few months back and then back up at him smiling.

"Lindsey will be disappointed if she's not at the wedding. You know how long she's waited for us to get married." He smirked at her.

"She hasn't waited nearly as long as I have, so I think I deserve to get married when and where I want." She poked him in the chest.

"You want her there." He smiled lovingly at her and nodded.

"I most certainly do." Then he thought of an idea. "So how about we wake her up and take her with us? We can find the nearest wedding chapel, which won't be a problem in this town." He laughed but stopped when she kept poking him harder and harder while glaring at him. "Ouch. Stop that." He grabbed her hand. "You shouldn't bruise you husband-to-be." She smirked at him.

"Then stop saying things that'll make me poke you. I'm not getting married in some cheesy wedding chapel by an Elvis lookalike with only Lindsey as a witness. I want our families and friends there too. You know my mom and sister want to be there. The same goes for Jim, Al, Warrick, Nick, and Greg." He nodded but decided not to roll his eyes. "And what do you mean that you deserve to get married when and where you want? We both agreed on the date and place, or have you forgotten about that?"

"No, I didn't forget about that." She smiled and leaned in giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Good." He sighed and gave her a puppy dog look.

"I just want to get married now because I'm going to be really lonely tonight without you." She chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"The only reason you want to get married right now is so that you can get to the wedding night." He protested.

"That's not true." She cocked an eyebrow at him and he nodded slightly. "Okay, so that's partly true." She gave him a triumphant smirk and he smiled back at her. "But I also miss you when you're not with me." She smiled lovingly at him.

"I feel the same way."

"That's also why I couldn't sleep tonight." He then gave her a questioningly look. "If you feel the same way, how were you able to sleep?"

"That's because I was dreaming of you." He smirked.

"Pleasant dream?" She smiled seductively at him.

"Mmmm. Naughty dream." He shook his head laughing.

"You expect me to go back and sleep after hearing you say that?" She shrugged wrapping her arms around his neck.

"You can always hope you have the same dream." He smiled wrapping his arms around her waist.

"You know if you hadn't agreed to the insane idea of us sleeping apart the night before our wedding, we wouldn't have to dream about it." She groaned.

"I know. You have no idea how much I'm regretting that decision right now."

"With everything we've been though over the years, I hardly think that we'd have bad luck if I saw you the night before the wedding."

"Well, you're seeing me now so you better hope we don't have bad luck." He leaned in kissing her softly.

"We won't." She nodded agreeing with him.

"You should leave. If we continue kissing we won't be able to stop, and Lindsey, my mom, and sister won't be happy to find you in the house tomorrow morning. We also need to be rested for tomorrow. More importantly we need to be rested for the wedding night." She wiggled her eyebrows at him and he let out a small chuckle.

"We most certainly need to be rested for that." They kissed again neither of them in a hurry to end it. "Are you sure I can't change your mind?" She nodded.

"I'm sure. The wedding will go ahead as we planned." He stuck his bottom lip out at her. She smiled at the look he was giving her. "You're adorable." He smiled and leaned in for another kiss.

"I love you, Cath."

"I love you too, Gil."

They kissed again and hugged before saying their goodbyes. She watched him leave until the car was completely out of sight and then headed back inside.

When she was back in bed she looked at her engagement ring and smiled happily and thought back on the past year.

After Gil's surgery, they'd spent more time together. He had opened up and told her he felt guilty for not having told her sooner about his hearing problems, and for not being there as much as a best friend should be at the time of Eddie's death and on other occasions. She told him that he had nothing to feel guilty about, and that she knew they would always be best friends no matter what happened.

Having him around had also improved her relationship with Lindsey and her behavior. Lindsey had started behaving better in school and started to feel happier. She would often ask her mother if Gil could join them for dinner and on other occasions. Catherine asked him and he happily accepted every invitation.

The more time they spent together the more he thought about what Sara had told him after the explosion in the lab. That let him to think about his feelings for Catherine. He'd always had romantic feelings for her, but never thought to act on them. They were friends and he didn't think that his lack of ability to be more open and his obsession with his job and hobbies would ever lead them to be more than friends. He also hadn't thought of himself as a great catch, and especially not someone, who was worthy of Catherine, so his insecurities had also prevented him from acting on his feelings.

Little did he know that Catherine felt the same way.

The more time they spent together the more those feelings started to surface. Both thought that they were imagining things when there were signs. They'd looked at the other when the other wasn't looking to see if there was any sign that the other felt the same way, but for a while they couldn't see anything.

They went on to spending more time together and Lindsey somehow started to forget that she had made sleepover arrangements on nights that Gil would be coming over for dinner. When they finally got together, she admitted that it had been her plan to get them alone together, so that they could, in her words, hook up.

And it was on one of those nights that things had happened between them. Gil had been over for dinner that Catherine had cooked. She was too busy putting the food on the table that she hadn't realized she'd spilled some grease on the floor. When they were done and they both brought the dishes back to the kitchen and were leaving, they both slipped and collided, landing on the floor with Gil on top of Catherine.

Their closeness caused Catherine's face to flush and stir feelings in her, and it caused Gil's lower region to stir in his pants. They both noticed that and Gil quickly got off of her apologizing. He wanted to leave, but she wouldn't let him. She asked about what happened, but he wouldn't answer. Finally after a few arguments back and forth he blurted out his feelings. The room was quiet for a few seconds and just as he was about to turn around to leave, she told him she felt the same way. One thing led to another which eventually led to their wedding.

Most people were thrilled for them. Lindsey, Catherine's mom, and sister were the only ones, who knew of the relationship before they got engaged. Neither Catherine nor Gil wanted things out in the open because it might cause problems with their work situation. However, feeling that he'd wasted enough of his life without her, he had proposed after only being together for a few months. She had immediately accepted.

They told their families first followed by the people at work. Jim, Al, Warrick, Nick, and Greg were happy for them, but neither was really surprised about their relationship. Ecklie tried to break up their working relationship, but Gil fought for things to remain the way that they were. Seeing as Catherine wasn't new to the team and was a higher ranking CSI, things remained the way that they'd always been. Gil had smirked the entire day of how Ecklie hadn't gotten his way.

Other than that Ecklie didn't care about their relationship. Hodges had in the past year learned that sucking up to Gil got him nowhere, so he hadn't bothered to comment much on the relationship. But he had offered his congratulations. Everyone else in the lab and people they knew through their profession had done the same and had been really happy for them. Except for Sara.

When Sara heard the news about Catherine and Gil's engagement she was shocked. She always knew that they shared something special and she'd always been jealous of that since arriving in Las Vegas. But she never thought they had romantic feelings for each other. When the shock had worn slightly off she became devastated and realized that she now didn't have a chance with Gil at all. The first few weeks after the engagement had been announced, things had been awkward around the lab, and she had then decided to take a few weeks off to clear her head and get away from the engaged couple. Gil had granted her the vacation without hesitation. She had enough vacation due to her and he also knew it would be best for everyone if she wasn't around for a while.

When she got back things got a little better, but not much and that hadn't changed in the months leading up to the wedding, although they were professionals at work. Sara had naturally been invited to the wedding and had accepted, but Gil and Catherine knew that she wasn't completely happy for them. They hoped with time that she would be.

After learning that Sam was her father and knowing he was corrupt, Catherine hadn't spent much time with him. He had found out about the wedding and had tried to talk her out of it, and even offered her money so that she and Lindsey could leave Las Vegas and make a better life for themselves. She'd told him that she had never been happier than with her current life and that if he truly cared about her, he'd be happy for her. She and Gil had talked about whether or not Sam should be invited to the wedding, but Catherine had made the final decision not to invite him.

Catherine shook her head and then sighed contently. She didn't really care whether or not Sara and Sam ever came around. It wasn't that she didn't care about Sara, or that she didn't wish her happiness, and she couldn't deny that she still cared for Sam. But the happiness of her daughter, her future husband, and her own happiness was more important, and she felt that after her troubled marriage with Eddie, she and Lindsey deserved to be happy. And they were. More than ever. Catherine and Lindsey's relationship was better and stronger than ever, and Lindsey loved Gil and thought of him as a dad. Alone that thought made Catherine smile, and she knew that nothing could ever break the three of them up.

She tossed and turned for a while in bed and realized that she was wide awake. She groaned out loud regretting more and more that she let Gil leave. Sleep would definitely not be possible in the near future.

**The End.**


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